UK house prices fall by least in eight months

British house prices fell by the least in eight months in February when they edged down by 0.2 per cent on an annual basis after a revised 1.3 per cent decrease in January, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday.

The ONS also said its gauge of private rents rose by 9.2 per cent in the year to March – the biggest increase since records started in 2015 and up from 9.0 per cent in the 12 months to February.

Other measures of Britain’s housing market have shown a recovery from a recent slowdown as investors braced for cuts to interest rates by the Bank of England later this year.

Mortgage lender Halifax said earlier this month that property prices fell for only the first time in six months in March. Rival Nationwide said prices rose in March at their fastest annual pace since December 2022.

But a slowdown in the fall of British inflation in data published on Wednesday prompted investors to trim expectations of interest rate cuts by the BoE, with a first and possibly only cut in Bank Rate fully priced in for November.